Event App Metrics: Making them work from start to finish

25 Jan 2017

Event metrics is probably a significant reason behind most event organizers choice of app. A key element of developing a good ROI is having good information behind you which can be achieved through event app metrics.

Onsite event analytics used to be something of a black hole. Event organizers would use digital means to manage the before and after of their events, but not during. Now with the advent of event apps and near universal smartphones, this problem is mostly solved.

Getting that information is one thing, knowing what to do with it is quite another.

Thankfully there are ways to break down your data into more meaningful values. Rather than looking at a sea of graphs and charts, by applying your own real life understanding of your event to your data you can get some really interesting information back about your events

In today’s post we will explain how you can combine various sources of information to apply your analytics data for the most event success.

Create an digital event strategy

Before you start looking at event tech solutions, it’s important to really consider what your aim is for your event data. Are you trying to boost ticket sales, calculate a no-show rate or experiment with new event design? These are going to require different types of data and different applications. Make sure to discuss with your event app provider what sort of analytics they can provide and consider how you will use them.

Think broadly about how you might use the data. Event app metrics can tell you a great deal about your audience and hence should be relevant to all your interactions with them

A good digital strategy that yields useful data should:

📌Contain lots of incentive for low effort interaction (reaction polls on Facebook rather than leave a comment)

📌Start early to plot how results changed across the development of the event

📌Not focus on vanity metrics

Direct and indirect means of calculation

Analytics aren’t just a question of graphs and percentages. Most of the data you will receive in the course of your event is likely to be indirect. In app conversations tell you a lot about how successful networking was. Consider how usage rates might reflect more widely about how your attendees use technology and what they appreciate.

Distinguishing qualitative feedback from quantitative data.

Feedback forms have always been ingrained into event management and rightly so. It’s always good to hear from attendees in their own words. Regardless, be wary of relying on vague questions. More objective information yielded in event app metrics can be better in situations where you’re trying to answer very specific questions in relation to your audience. Asking whether someone was satisfied with the event overall is more likely to yield a simple yes rather than a proper comment which takes longer to write. As a result, there’s a risk your data will end up biased. Similarly, workshop responses can be highly influenced by who is running it or fellow participants.

By contrast, rather than ask whether people enjoyed the session, you can look at how many people downloaded the slide deck. This is probably a better indicator of real engagement.

Differentiating Factors

Qualitative

📌Yields general impressions and new insights

📌Good for rapidly developing and testing hypotheses

Quantiative

📌Answers very specific questions rather than give a broad overview

📌Objective

📌Good for proving ideas you already suspect about your event.

Content generation

Its rare for any business to be get a significant chunk of their audience all in one place and all thinking about their industry. Events are a great opportunity to research what your audience is actually talking about. If you are using a live question or poll app, this can be a great way to get ideas for future blog posts, videos and marketing campaigns.

Look at which polls or questions received the largest response (positive or negative) as much as percentage wins in a poll. This gives you great indicators as to what your audience is likely to engage in.

Social Listening

On a similar note, make sure to set up your social listening services early on in the promotion of your event and are a useful counterpart to event app metrics. There are a huge number of tools available to do this. Social listening can give you insight into what your attendees are interested in and what they’re discussing in relation to your event. This should give you insight into whether what your event provides and what they expect match up. You can do this within Swapcard using an integrated Twitter feed.

Conclusion

How you use event app metrics and other forms of analytics in relation to your event is likely to be highly personalised. You already know a great deal about your attendees and hence are best placed to interpret nuances in data. Be aware of extraneous factors that may compromise your results and be sure to communicate with your event app provider for the best results